UNPACKING SYNONYM TRIAL

The reality that often, offences against Dalits are not reported and registered should not be ignored as noted by Human Rights Watch.įurthermore, the report misses the data on mob lynching which was said to be collected by the NCRB but did not make it to the report. Simply put, these are the crimes that are reported and recorded. The data released by NCRB is compiled from statistics given by the state/union territory police departments and central law enforcement agencies. This also suggests that rising impunity maybe contributing to the rising violence against the community in these cities. The conviction rates of cities like Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kanpur, and Lucknow which have a higher frequency of reported crimes against Dalits fell from 2016 to 2018. This is a decrease in 52% and 46% from the people convicted and acquitted in 2016 respectively.

Overall in 19 cities, 69 persons were convicted for crime against Dalits and 206 persons were acquitted in 2018. The Conviction rate, which is calculated by dividing Cases Convicted to the Cases in which Trials were Completed in a year, fell from 27.5% in 2016 to 17.9% in 2018. Patna topped in cities with the highest number of pending trials with 1081 pending cases in 2018 followed by Lucknow, Ahmedabad, and Kanpur which had 878, 700, and 665 pending cases respectively.

UNPACKING SYNONYM TRIAL

The number of reported crimes in metropolitan cities against Dalits found to be false has declined by 24% from 200 in 2016 to 152 in 2018.Ĭourt Disposal of Crime/Atrocities against Dalits cases: There is a 30.9% rise in the number of cases pending trial in court from 4052 in 2016 to 5305 in 2018. Pending and false cases: While the reported cases of crime against Dalits have decreased by 17.3% in 2018 as compared to 2016, the number of cases pending police investigation increased by 10.4%. The anticipatory bail provision has also been removed and courts can quash FIRs only in exceptional cases.Ĭrime against Dalit women: Not surprisingly, The NCRB data also brought out that a large frequency (with an overall increase of 24.4% from 2016) of the crimes against Dalits reported were crimes against women, including assault, sexual harassment, stalking, voyeurism, and insult to modesty. In the amended SC/ST Act, preliminary enquiry and prior approval of appointing authority is not required before FIRs. However, on Feb 10, 2020, the court upheld the SC/ST Amendment Act 2018 which was brought to nullify the March 2018 judgment. Coupled with this, the court also introduced the provision of anticipatory bail if there is no prima facie case or if, upon investigation, the case is found to be malafide. As on March of the same year, the Supreme Court ruled that there shall be no immediate arrest of a citizen or public servant without prior permissions for crimes registered under the Act. Interestingly, this Act has been a reason for countrywide protests in 2018. SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act: The largest number of crimes in the metropolitan cities were recorded under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act with as many as 1361 victims in the last three years itself. India wide statistics on the other hand show a 6% increase in crime against Dalits with 40,401 reported cases in 2014 and 42,793 in 2018.Ĭrime/Atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SC’s) in Metropolitan Cities: 2014-18

Since 2014, the metropolitan cities, overall, have seen a decrease in crime against Dalits by 11.4%, according to the data provided by NCRB. It was the first time in the 2016 report (which has data for the years 2014-16) that data on crimes against Scheduled Castes and Tribes was released for the metropolitan cities which have a population of over 2 million. In this context, the 20 report of the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) provides figures for 19 metropolitan cities on crimes against Dalits. Ambedkar graphically described villages as a ‘sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and communalism’ asking Dalits to move to the anonymity of cities. Cities are essentially viewed as a melting pot of cultures that extend economic opportunities and quality of life where existing social identities of caste, religion, class, race, gender, and sexuality are matters of less concern. Metropolitan cities are rarely mentioned in the discourse of violence against Dalits. Even in films like Article 15 which have attempted to show the caste violence in India, the setup is rural where a caste blind IPS officer from the city only realises the horrors of caste when he’s appointed in a remote village. A mention of violence against Dalits puts forth images of incidents like those of flogging of Dalits in Una, Gujarat, or of the more recent rape and murder of a Dalit teen in UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri.

Unpacking synonym